Friday, March 16, 2018

Spare to my needs: Paddles..

I am a pack rat and have a habit of accumulating stuff to the point of redundancy. Lately, I am girding my loins for an April-May foray into rejuvenating my Morse code [questionable] talents by way of the infamous CW Academy. In casting about the shack/clubhouse/workbench, I noted that I was overflowing in the CW paddle category and sought to disburse these who are desirous of same.

Of course, these are offered at a fair price but are in decent condition. Herewith a description, comments, and pictures.

BENCHER BY-1
This came to me many moons ago via the TRW Swap Meet and was my main weapon of choice for many years. When my father (N6ABV) passed away in 1992, I inherited his Bencher BY-2 (the chrome base model) and was using that. My BY-1 was stored lovingly (i.e., not out back in the garden near the water spout or near the septic tank overflow nozzle), has been cleaned and adjusted and is ready to get back into the game. As I was cleaning it and testing it, I was surprised at how really good it was -- in my opinion, as good as the BY-2. If space were not a premium and since I only have one code fist..

VIBROPLEX CODE WARRIOR JUNIOR
This paddle poses the question: was there a Code Warrior Senior? (No, there was not.) Anyway, I picked this up after one or two waltzes with the NorCal Paddle Kit released in 1997. Remember?

Those were actually incredibly marvelous little items given the price and -- with a little care -- the resulting product. And, except for the plastic paddles, they were also pretty rugged. No Italian $500 shack queen here, they could be taken out to the woods, ridden hard, and put away wet. But you had to take along a set of drilled out guitar picks just in case!

When Vibroplex came up with these, I got a set and, true to form, the plastic paddles gave up the ghost. Instead of some famous rocker's signature guitar picks, I used a thin piece of copperclad PCB painted black. To my wonderment, they were better than the thick plexiglass originals.